East of Common: August 2011

View as you enter the kitchen - Sunshine Biscuit, our
wooden fish is in the background which is a purchase
from our trip earlier this year to St. Lucia

Well, folks, the glorious time has come when I bid farewell to the kitchen renovation series that has been my blog over the last two months. For me, it has been a glorious story and one that has (thankfully) finished with a happy ending. We are truly thrilled with the finished product and though there were some bumps along the way (I spilled super glue on the new hardwood floors while putting away boxes which required emergency board replacement surgery. I tried to hide it from Grant for the first 10 minutes but had to spill the beans when my efforts to clean it up totally failed), we are happier with the end result than we thought that we would be.

In fact, it has been most fun to watch people's faces when they see the finished kitchen for the first time. The best so far has been my friend, Katie, who, despite having seen our old kitchen a zillion times, did not see any of the construction process, and was blown away when she walked into the finished product. Grant and I couldn't help but smile from her reaction.

Original View from the kitchen entrance

As with any final chapters, writing this post has given me good time for reflection about our renovation journey. I don't mean to be overly dramatic, but anyone who has done a significant home renovation (especially our G'Burg friend Cary who, with her husband, is building their own house) knows that it is a journey of highs and lows, excitements and disappointments, cost overruns and few savings (very few, but some), and loads of inconvenience. I have grown that much wiser and am eager to share my tips:

1. Take the time to live in your space before beginning any renovation. Despite wanting a new kitchen immediately, Grant and I spent almost 2 years thinking about how we work in the kitchen and building a wish list around those habits. The result is an incredibly efficient kitchen with just enough "flare" to be perfectly unique to our style.

2. Obsess over the budget with the construction company before you sign on the dotted line so that you have few if any additions to the labor cost during the project (with the exception of my glue mishap, we did not have any labor overruns).

3. Ask dumb questions of your contractors so that you are always on the same page...we did every day! Like - what exactly is shoe molding and do you plan to plaster that huge hole in the ceiling?

4. Inspect your space each day to make sure things are being constructed as planned. We noticed that our sink base cabinet was not cut-out for the farm sink and initially thought that the contractors would cut it out at some point. Because we inquired, we found out that there was a communication disconnect between the contracting company and the installation guy and he was not planning to cut out the sink cabinet at all. Thank goodness we stayed on top of it!

5. Be really nice to your contractors. I left a friendly note each day thanking them for their work. A little sugar goes a long way.

6. Always be thinking about space. Whether a bathroom, basement, kitchen, or outdoor yard - how can you maximize space? This is especially true in a small house like ours. With regard to our kitchen, our only options for storage capacity were up and out. For this reason our cabinets go to the ceiling and are 3 inches deeper than standard size (a foot is standard). Though we need a step-stool for the upper shelves, we have a ton more storage space than we would have otherwise and it really makes no difference to the eye.

7. Be honest about what you can feasibly do yourself. For us, we did not have the time or ability to do demo or install the flooring. The only part of the kitchen that we did ourselves was paint, since our estimate was $1500 to do so. It was about all we could manage and we are so glad that we did. The rest of it was completely worth the money for someone else to do.

8. Try to look at all of the materials that you plan to use before making a decision to purchase. This is especially true of granite purchases as granite varies so much. The first pattern we picked out did not settle well on our minds and we went back to pick a new slab. Funny enough, the granite counter tops are among our favorite part of the entire kitchen.

9. Kitchen-specific advice - if renovating a kitchen, get new appliances. Period. Just do it. Grant talked me into the purchases and it was totally worth the extra money.

10. Take Pictures! Before and after photos are priceless (and who knows, maybe you can make it into a magazine one day).

Even better than having a fabulous new stove that boils a large pot of water in less than 10 minutes, a cool ice maker and water dispenser on the fridge, a fabulously wonderful farm sink for washing dishes (which is now my new favorite chore), and a charming built-in bench for a seating nook is that we now officially have a true home renovation project under our belt. As an amateur decorator w/a fascination for design this is a huge feat and one that has not scarred me in the least. I am ready for the next home renovation. So, stay tuned... basement redo coming Fall 2012.

In the meantime - here is the 360 degree tour: